I AM WITH YOU # 1

10. JULY 2015 – 13. JULY 2015
AT DORKYPARK’s STUDIO 44

I AM WITH YOU is a cycle of events initiated by Constanza Macras | DorkyPark that will be developed over the span of the next two years. I AM WITH YOU is a series of small performance formats and workshops by and with artists from Berlin and abroad. Featuring independent international and Berlin based artists from various fields. Part one is going to concentrate on choreographers, dancers and performance makers.

The first part of the cycle will take place from July 10th until the 13th 2015 at DorkyPark’s Studio 44 in Berlin. The program will introduce artists from Brazil, Canada, Italy, South Africa, Israel and Germany, who have all been dealing with the theme of the “HERE AND NOW”.

Anouk Froidveaux and Ana Mondini uncover, transform and transcend the here and now of the human body and its energies. A performance by Italian choreographer and dancer Claudia Catarzi investigates the psychological dimension of movement as it records and influences gestures, rhythms and single steps in the here and now, while South African performer Mmakgosi Kgabi and participants of her sound-based workshop conduct an audio study on how sound manifests itself in the human body and the ways in which it can become part of our identity. South African artist Hector Thami Manekehla deals with the political dimensions of a particular here and now: ‘A good bad place for no tourists nor locals’ presents a snapshot of his native Johannesburg, one of the most dangerous cities in the world, where violence is par for the course regardless of creed or colour. Ariel Efraim Ashbel and Jan-Sebastian Suba ‘Staying with the trouble’ (Donna Haraway) reflects on modern approaches to living through a depression in the here and now rather than coming up with didactic measures to make the world a better place. What powers are potentially locked up in a depression and what could we learn from them? Do we lose touch with the here and now by chasing theoretical possibilities?

I AM WITH YOU is dunded by a three-year conceptual grant from the Fonds Darstellende Künste e.V., made possible by the Federal Cultural Foundation.

PERFORMANCE PROGRAM

QUI, ORA by Claudia Catarzi (Prato / Berlin)

This solo examines in a straightforward way how the body reacts in the conditions of stage situations co- created by space, costumes, sounds and the proximity of the audience. All of these aspects decide in the given moment – „here and now“, „qui, ora“ – about the form of gesture and rhythm, about each step and movement of this intimate journey. An empty stage, a dispassionate look at the very essence of dance language and stage presence – this is the minimalist task with which the dancers operate. It heads away from the metaphysical image of puppets fettered by internal and external limitations, including gravitational resistance, and finds a psychological dimension in motion, capable of powerful emotional impact.

BIO

Is a choreographer and dancer , she work as a dancer with Constanza Macras (Berlin), Virgilio Sieni, Iztok Kovac & (Ljubljana), László Hudi (Budapest), Batsheva Dance Company (Tel Aviv). She participated in the short film The Towers of Peter Greenaway. From September 2013 he took part in Installationen Objekte Performances, project Sasha Waltz. Her Work as choreographer has been touring some of the most important dance and theatre festivals like Roma Europa or Dublin international Festival.

A GOOD BAD PLACE FOR NO TOURISTS NOR LOCALS by Hector Thami Manekehla (Johannesburg)

I decided to create a piece that deals with the tension of crime in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town. Since these three cities are recognized as world African class cities, they are also the top cities in the country visited by tourists from all parts of the world. Everybody knows that Johannesburg is one of the most dangerous cities in the world, but that does not stop outsiders to visit and experience the city as it is. From a touristic point of view, only white tourists are getting robbed their belongings more than the local residents.

Reality is, Johannesburg is even more dangerous for local residents – irrespective of their skin colour. You are more likely to be killed for your smart phone on the streets, you are more likely to be killed for your car at the traffic light or gate of your house, you are more likely to be killed for your clothes, you are more likely to be killed for your wrist watch or necklace and you are more likely to be killed for withdrawing your money at the ATM machine. You are also more likely to be killed for resisting to hand over your bag pack at criminals, either they stab or shot you to death.

The majority of the houses have security arm respond alarm system, as house breaking and house robbery are one of the biggest crimes committed everyday in Johannesburg. Car theft and car hijack are also among the top crimes committed everyday in Johannesburg – irrespective if you have installed the anti hijack alarm system or car tracking system in your car. All these systems cannot guarantee your house won`t be robbed or your car won`t be stolen, they just exist to make people to feel a little bit better about their own security. The ironic part of it is: whenever the house security arm respond arrive at your house, the criminals are long gone and are nowhere to be found. Whenever the tracking chopper and respond unit search for your car; either they find the device or they find half of your car. So many lives have been lost and so many people have been left traumatised, scars of crime that triggers brutal memories-rusty knifes that have pierced beautiful bodies twenty five times and left them unrecognised. Bloody scene, lifeless body floating in a pool of own blood. So many unclaimed corpses at the government mortuary. So much fear in society, dark streets, hunting grounds for criminals. Who’s that walking towards my direction on the right side of the street? Blue lights and sirens hope of the afraid, at least I can live to see another day.

BIO

HECTOR THAMI MANEKEHLA Is a South African artist based in Johannesburg who has been working in France , Sweden , Portugal, Mexico and who’s work has tour the world in numerous houses and international festivals , like NY live Arts , Theatre der Welt , he performed in Berlin @ HAU his collaboration with Thabiso Heccius Pule: P.E.N.I.S. P.O.L.I.T.I.C.S. he is currently having a residence in Schloss Solitude.

An excerpt evolution from my second work Color Me B – performed at Ballhaus Naunynstrasse as part of the ”We are tomorrow. Visions and Retrospection on Occasion of the 1884 Berlin Conference”. Ideally the sounds realised during the workshop will be used as the sound for this performance. A 12-15 min piece exploring a juxstaposition of the Greek mythology Sisyphos and Narccist supported by ancient african meditation rituals and butoh.

BIO

Mmakgosi Kgabis performance work often interrogates the premise of identity and nationalism. Mmakgosi was conceived by her mother whilst her father was a South African refugee in Botswana during the apartheid regime. Can an unborn child inherit the innate uneding feeling of constant displacement when faced with nationalism, tribalism and capitalist borders? Can this constant displacement fuel a yearning for constant gravitation and migration? This is what Mmakgosi explores in Workhop, Performance and Research. Mmakgosi is a trained physical theatre performer, story teller and television actress. She draws from her training as a clown and an improviser in the daily performance of life. In 2014 she had a residency during Constanza Macras | DorkyPark’s ON FIRE program in Studio 44, Berlin. She has recently migrated to Berlin.

In this post imperial depression, a state which can describe both us (as we’ve just finished a piece called “The Empire strikes back”) and the continent we live in, we are taking the time and space to focus on basic building blocks of the process of making images. Thinking about the black box, about the difference between something and nothing, about our aesthetic, social and political responsibilities as artists, and about the many ways these responsibilities have been hijacked and abused by well intentioned people over the course of what we can modernity, we’re enjoying asking questions, sharing references, discussing our performative desires in different ways, establishing and formulating not necessarily one unit carrying content but a system of exchange that can host many different kinds of such units. The exciting horror of the black box lies in it’s duality: a seemingly empty, clean, neutral space/object on which one can project anything; but at the same time it’s a crypted, coded, locked, mysterious being. In the gaps between these different moments, we’re building a space for “staying with the trouble”, and initiate some social-aesthetic entertaining experimentation.

BIO

Jan Sebastian Suba is an actor/performer from Berlin. As a stage actor, Sebastian worked in some mainstream venues, such as Staatstheater Stuttgart, but he carries out most of his work as a freelance performer in the Freie Szene (free scene) of his home town Berlin. His collaborations in recent years included leading artists and companies, such as performance theater collective Andcompany&Co, Artist Yael Bartana, Hans- Werner Krösinger, Bruno Cathomas, Musician-Director Santiago Blaum, Aktionstheater Ensemble Wien from Vienna, Theater company Lubricat queer performance group Cheap, Filmmakers Christian Frosch and Edwien Brienen, Choreographer Nir de Volff and Art-Pop icon Peaches. Since 2011 he works regularly with Ariel Efraim Ashbel / AKA Performance Squad.

Ariel Efraim Ashbel is a Berlin based artist from Israel, who makes performances. Originally a theater director, the work he’s creating since 2000 is dealing with the development of interdisciplinary structures for stage events, located in the gap between theater, dance, music and installation. He also collaborates with fellow makers as performer, dramaturge and sometimes light designer. Between the years 2008-2010 he was associate artistic director of the “IntimaDance” Festival for contemporary dance and performance in Tel Aviv’s Tmuna Theater. Since 2011 he is based in Berlin, and has contributed to various projects in HAU Hebbel am Ufer, HZT Berlin (Uferstudios), ausland, the Berlin Biennial, the Berlin Porn Film Festival, Transmediale festival and more. Ariel is a graduate of the School of Visual Theater Jerusalem (2006) and holds a BA in History and Philosophy from the Tel Aviv University (2010). He won the Akko festival prize for alternative theater in 2003, scholarships from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation in 2003/4, 2004/5, 2005/6 and 2007/8, the Mayor of Jerusalem and the HaZira Performance Art Center prize in 2006, the ‘Legacy’ Foundation scholarship in 2007, and participated in Goethe Institute and International Theater Institution’s (ITI) residency program for young theater directors in 2011.He also appeared as a performer in the project “Ding Ding Dom: Das Theater der Zukunft” by Showcase Beat Le Mot. In 2013 he directed “All White People Look the Same To Me: Notes on the National Pornographic”, which was premiered at HAU.

Jessica Gadani (b. 1984) is a singer/performer from Upstate New York. She holds a degree
in classical voice performance from Ithaca College in Ithaca, NY. She sang in various opera
productions as a Mezzo-Soprano in the USA, and for the past six years has been living and
working as a freelance singer and performer in Berlin. Gadani has been performing regularly
in German speaking free-scene theaters such as HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Sophiensaele, Kampnagel Hamburg, FFT Dusseldorf, and Gessnerallee Zurich, with Berlin-based artists such as Ariel Efraim Ashbel, Santiago Blaum, Johannes Müller and Andreas Liebmann. In 2010 she and fellow performer/host Jack Woodhead created a monthly cabaret evening called “Fish and
Whips”, where one can occasionally still find her singing, playing dress up, prancing about.